What’s the overarching formula for making the very best possible impression on your audience when you deliver a slide presentation? How do you capitalize on the scarce and precious commodity that your audience is offering you, which is the gift of their time and attention?

This article, Part 4 in a series, culminates our overview of the repeatable formula we have been discussing for creating truly outstanding presentations. (For previous articles in the series, please see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.) This formula comprises a set of powerful artistic and story-telling principles that are scientifically supported.

We can summarize the ideas behind this presentation formula in these simple terms: Art + Science + Story = Impact!

Begin by Building a Step-by-Step Foundation for Your Presentation

Each of these four stages is explained in greater detail in the sections that follow.

1. First, start with a needs assessment to determine what and how much to do. Depending on whether the impression you need to make is low-key or high-stakes, you can decide which principles of the formula to apply.

2. Second, if your situation is fairly low-key, or you have relatively little time, plan to use the Artistic and Multimedia Principles at a minimum to maximize your audience’s ability to understand and retain your ideas.

3. Third, if your situation is high-stakes, plan to apply the Story Principles as well to help make your presentation exceptionally memorable and actionable.

4. Fourth, plan to use three crucial delivery tips when you go to present your slide show in person.

1. Start with a Needs Assessment to Make Your Presentation Remarkable

Before you get started, aim to do some preliminary planning. This important first step can make the difference between a world-class presentation and just another forgettable slide show!

After all, you could eventually expend considerable effort to conceptualize, design, script, illustrate, rehearse, and deliver your slide presentation. So, why not consider which aspects of your situation are most important to you?

Ask yourself at least 5 key questions about your purpose, audience, their actions, the setting, and future uses of your material, as follows:

1) What’s the purpose, what’s at stake, and how critical is the outcome?

2) What is your anticipated audience’s frame of reference?

3) What actions do you want your audience to take as a result?

4) Where are you planning to deliver the presentation — in person or online?

5) In the future, could your presentation expand into something more?

In response to these questions, you can decide how to scale your time and energyinvestment to suit the needs of your presentation scenario, including how casual or critical it is. (See Part 3 of the series for more details.)

2. Use the Artistic & Multimedia Principles in Any Situation

If you have relatively little time, or the stakes are fairly low, and you have no plans to expand or redeploy your presentation in the future, you can still make a pleasing impression and produce it fairly quickly using the Artistic & Multimedia principles. These principles pertain to the use of text, graphics, details, and special effects (see more information in Part 2):

If you have more time, and the stakes are fairly high, or you think you might later develop the presentation into other products or uses, strongly consider applying all of the recommendations. These include the Story Principles, which pertain to your presentation’s focus, structure, and scope (explained in more detail in Part 2):

Tip #5: Focus – Begin by framing your audience’s role, perspective, and needs. Then introduce the challenge the audience faces and your solution, and explain the actions that the audience members can take.

Tip #6: Structure – Create a logical sequence and flow based on a scalable hierarchy of detail, starting with an audience orientation.

Tip #7: Scope – “Chunk” all of your material into just 3-4 main topics. Include reviews along the way to summarize your information. Practice extensively beforehand while timing yourself, so you can then “scope” your talk using the scalable 5-, 15- and 45-minute detail hierarchy from your outline.

4. Keep These Final Points in Mind to Create Impact During Delivery…

After you’ve worked so diligently to create an outstanding, well-illustrated story that focuses on your audience’s needs, use these three tips to make sure your delivery is just as compelling:

·Tip #8: Remember to face your audience. If you break eye contact with your attendees to read from projected slides, it interrupts the flow and further splits the audience’s attention.

Tip #9: Remember to converse with your audience. Not engaging the audience enough during your presentation invites their attention to wander elsewhere.

Tip #10: Remember to respect your audience’s time. Running way overtime trying to cover too much information in the time available dilutes your impact and can even cause resentment.

In conclusion, an engaging slide presentation helps broadcast a clear, powerful message; you might have only one chance to communicate your ideas effectively.
But if you start with a needs assessment to determine what to do, you can use theArt + Science + Story = Impact formula to make every presentation a smashing success!

In business since 1991, Terry Green is the founder/CEO/President of BizEase Support Solutions, an American-based, online marketing support company comprised of a team of talented professionals from around North America. BizEase excels at providing speakers and business coaches worldwide with seamless online marketing solutions, from setting up shopping carts and editing video, to writing blog posts and managing Social Media and PR campaigns. BizEase clients (who span five continents) take great joy in allowing the BizEase team to take care of the details so they can get back to doing what they do best! Click here to get our weekly tips ezine delivered to your inbox every other Friday, with tips on plugins, apps, and tools to make you more productive today!